IBSF World Snooker Championship 2009

News & Updates

REPORT OF 16.11.2009

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The second day of 2009 ONGC-IBSF World Snooker Championship 2009 being held in Hall 3 of Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad had a mixed fortune for Indian cueists.

Veteran Indian cueist Geet Sethi survived against Simon Zammit of Malta. Geet started the match and lost first frame to Simon. The second frame saw Geet striking the balls in his characteristic brilliance and compiled a nice break of 69 to level the proceeding. The third frame was quite scrappy as both the players kept on committing unforced errors. However, at the end Sethi with his huge experience battled it out to go ahead by 2-1. In a desperate attempt to level the score for sheer survival, Zammit went on to full aggression and piled up a substantial lead giving Sethi only a couple of chance to comeback to the game. The decider saw Sethi taking a substantial lead and when he was at a point of closing the game with two reds on the table, a missed regulation red pot by Sethi in an attempt to position for the pink ball allowed Zammit to bounce back to the game. Zammit cleverly took the two remaining reds with colours and made the game open in the colour balls with all ball tie situation. Sethi needing only one colour ball to send Zammit to the snooker situation made a number of mistakes, but at the end the lady luck smiled on him as an attempted blue at the centre pocket hit the jaw and rolled down along the cushion to the bottom pocket, which sealed the match 3-2 in his favour.

Amongst the other Indians in the Masters category, K. Ranjan beat his fellow countrymen Prabhakaran 3-1. Venkatesham and Kamaraj also won against Frank Schoder (Germany) and Andrey Will (Russia) respectively.

Darren Morgan  brushed aside the challenge of Naoki Matsuzaki of Japan by 3-0 with a magnificent break of 103 in the opening frame. Last year’s champion Dene O’kene of New Zealand kept his winning streak by yet another win against India’s BVS Murthy by 3-0.

Yesterday, in the last session, the huge crowd which gathered at the venue witnessed a classical display of snooker by two maestros Alfie Burden of England and Tian Pengfei of China. Alfie with his mellifluous cueing and gossamer touch enthralled the crowd and completely outclassed his highly reputed opponent by going ahead 3-0. However, Tian showed great sangfroid at that crucial juncture and with the help of his substantial professional exposure leveled the proceedings by wrapping up the next three frames with careful and meticulous display of snooker. The decider saw Alfie at his brilliant best as he went on to rake in ball after ball with pin-point precision to compile a break of 118, the highest so far in the championship and emerged as the worthy winner.

Two times Asian Snooker Champion, Yasin Merchant of India blazed the green baize with breaks of 82, 89 and 71 in the first, fifth and sixth frame respectively to win a hard fought battle against Mario Fernandez of Ireland after being down by 1-3.

Ng On Yee (Hong Kong) inspite of smashing a clearance break of 77, highest so far in the ladies category, in the third frame lost to Ramona Belmont of New Zealand by 2-3.

Vidya Pillai and Anuja registered comfortable win against their opponents Claudia Webber (Switzerland) and Bi Zhuqing (China) respectively.